“Anybody who had any responsibility for leadership and management must ask how they allowed this place to get into the state where patients were dying,” he is quoted as saying in an interview with the newspaper.

Sir Ian Kennedy said it was clear that serious problems at the hospital were evident as far back as 2002, yet no action was taken by managers. He also criticised ‘bosses’ at the strategic health authority for failing to act.

The Sunday Telegraph has launched a campaign today for a series of measures to ensure that the crisis in Staffordshire is never repeated in the NHS. The Heal Our Hospitals campaign demands the establishment of an independent inquiry into the regulation and supervision of NHS hospitals.

The newspaper is also calling for:

– A review of hospital targets to ensure that they work to improve quality of care.
– Nurses to focus on patient care – not form-filling – as their central duty.
– Routine publication of comprehensive death rates for hospitals.
– Patients to be given a stronger voice in the running of hospitals.
– Assurance that senior hospital staff will not be rewarded for failure.